Saendul's eyes snapped open, staring at the plain white finish on the ceiling. He lay on a simple bed, resting in a guest room that lay within the palace of the King of Osoran, the man he had been ordered to kill.


Saendul was the warlord and leader of the Blades of Epithet, an elite cult of assassins whose souls were pledged to the ancient deity Mográs, the Baron of the Underworld, the Shadow of the Earth.


On a moonless night, as the wind howled past the towers of the palace of Khaza’Dün, and the black crows took to the skies, cawing and screeching to the cold night air, and Saendul lay sleeping in his obsidian chambers, the Baron had come to him in his shadowy dreams. Mográs gave him a task, to hunt down and kill the royal family of Osoran, for they interfered in the dark plans of the Shadow. And so Saendul had risen from his slumber, bare and naked to the world, and roused his men, and they had ridden on the bidding of their master, their black steeds galloping with unnatural urgency through mist and shadow and gloom. The king had welcomed them as a delegation of nobles from a distant land, and had provided them with a guest room, in which Saendul now lay, gathering his thoughts.


Saendul's men were already up and prepared for the task ahead, their inky black robes blending with the shade of the murky room. Incandescent moonlight shone through the glass window, casting large and malevolent shadows across the floor. The men stood in a ring around his bed, chanting softly, offering prayers to the Bringer of Night. Saendul slipped out of bed, and brushed past the ring of men to get at his clothes. He slipped them on quickly, and pulled up his hood, black as pitch.


His black and red robes were more than mere decoration; they symbolized his commitment to draw blood from his enemies with every strike, and his binding allegiance to the Shadow, an oath sealed in the blood of innocents.


“Leave me to my task,” he whispered hoarsely, softly. The Blades ceased their chanting and slipped one by one out the window and into the gloom, to wait for their commander by the Western Gate.


Silence was sovereign over the room.


Saendul strapped a boot knife to his black greaves, a sword belt around his waist, and his throwing knife belt over a golden and ornate letter M, for Mográs, the Father of Darkness.


He reached into a pouch on his belt and withdrew a small container. He opened it, and dipped his fingers into the black paint. He drew his fingers across his eyes and mouth and across his cheeks, to symbolize the darkness that was always with him.


From his belt he drew his long, elegant sword, slender, black, deadly. He pressed it against the soft flesh beneath his forearm and cast his head back, his eyes closed and his chest heaving, his breath coming in ragged pulls as the darkness filled him, and the voices of his mind began their arcane chant. Saendul drew the sword across his arm, and crimson blood oozed from the cut, dark and viscous. Pain glanced along his arm, invigorating and sharp. He wiped the blade in his blood, whetting its appetite for what was to come.


Saendul stood, his preparation complete. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nostrils, drawing the darkness around himself, caressing it, welcoming it. Darkness filled his being, and power surged through him. He was ready, and Mográs was with him.


Wind screamed past the windows, bringing shadows and darkness. Voices in Saendul’s head began to stir, to whisper.


Saendul hungered for blood, for beautiful violence.


He lusted after that ecstasy, that rapture of the collision of pleasure and agony, that comes, always, infallibly, once it begins, once the madness is loosed.


Once the first spray of blood soars through the air, and the demons of the night howl with agonizing pleasure, then comes the surge of power, the rush of darkness, flooding his very soul, the icy presence of an ancient evil enveloping his mind.


Saendul stalked to the door and opened it, wincing as it creaked softly. He exited the room, and found the bodies of seven men of the Diamond Guard, the King’s personal bodyguards, and the most elite fighting force under the King of Osoran, lying on the ground, lifeless and cold. Good. All was as planned, then. He proceeded out the door, and found himself on a landing near a set of spiraling stairs to his left leading upwards twenty-four stories, and another on his right leading down six.


Moonlight, flooding from the windows of his room, swept along the landing, a ray of silvery light piercing the darkness. Saendul shut the door, extinguished the light.


Darkness swallowed him.


He began to walk to the banister of the landing.


The king’s bedchamber, his destination, lay at the bottom of the castle, six flights of stairs down, down into the spiraling pit.


Saendul was about to begin his descent when he saw, from the corner of a bloodshot eye, a small detachment of the Diamond Guard ascending the stairs. Saendul had not the time for a fight.


He marshaled his thoughts, calling on the darkness pressing upon the corners of his mind. Seductive whispers echoed through his head, and the endless chasm of darkness filled him, possessed him, urging him into action.


Taking a deep breath, Saendul sprinted at the railing and vaulted it, plummeting straight down sixty feet, his dark red and black robes whirling about him. Shadows flitted across him as he fell, ever downward, swallowed into the abyss, a shade on the wind.


He landed softly on his leather boots, his intricate robes hovering eerily in the night for an unnaturally long moment. Saendul raised his bowed head and searched the hallway before him, his bloodshot eyes framed in black.


No sympathy lay in his heart for what he planned to do that night. No hot surge of adrenaline pumped through his black heart, no warm crimson rush flowed through his frozen purple veins. That would come later, when the blood of his enemies filled the air, and his madness sang with joyful torment.


Saendul ran quietly on through the palace, headed towards the rear, the location of the bedchambers of royalty. The palace was deserted; all had turned in for the night. He ran along a wide corridor of white marble and granite, his only companions the shadows and the tickling voices urging him forward. He ran past thick pillars supporting the roof. Torches hung on brackets along the wall every few feet, and beams of moonlight fell through windows set high on the walls. The beams of silver light danced along the ground, passing over Saendul’s sleek form as he sprinted through the palace, his footfalls as quiet as a breeze brushing the soft leaves of an ancient oak, caressed by rivulets of soft air.


He ran past the sleeping royalty, a breeze riding the night. He darted past the rooms of the dukes, the duchesses, the knights, until at last, he saw the double doors of the King’s bedchambers. Ten men stood in front of the door in a wedge formation, barring his entrance. Each man carried a long, deadly pike, and swords adorned their waists. Their armor shone in the torchlight, elegant and bright. But no amount of shining steel could halt the coming shadow.


Without emotion, and on the urging of dark voices, Saendul slipped behind a nearby pillar of granite. He drew two of his six throwing knives, small but ornate. They depicted upon their uncrossed hilts a red hand, a symbol of Mográs, the Baron of the Dead. Runes were engraved upon the blade that read, “R’thatkair Mográs agnorod ithatekai rumekäe,” a prayer in the black tongue of Mográs, the words that the Lord of Shade utters to usher in the night.


Saendul dared a glance around the pillar to acquire a target for his black knives.


His muscles ceased their shaking, and his hands were rock steady as he began.


With a deep breath, he let his knife fly, dispatching the guard at the head of the wedge. Quickly, he threw the second at another guard, the blade slicing through the night. He drew his remaining knives, the cold metal pressed against his palms. Rapidly he let his black blades bite into his enemies, singing their song of death to the fallen, chanting a rhythmic beat to the dark angels of the sky. Piercing screams of death and pain seared through the night, and the demons of the world of shade rejoiced and cried out with glorious agony.


At the end of his bombardment, four men were left standing, cowering and shouting threats to the cold night air. Saendul drew his wicked sword, a curved, black bladed scimitar. Its hilt was uncrossed, and a delicate carving of two men was etched into the hilt, both distorted and screaming with pain. Saendul whispered a prayer to his dark master.


The moonlight failed, and the torches fluttered. A foul wind swept through the corridor, reeking of evil and age.


Mográs called for death.


Once again the blackness consumed his soul, and every fiber of his being screamed with torment, demanding that he answer the summons.


Saendul surrendered to the voices. He surrendered himself, his soul, his being, to the dark whispers of his mind, yielding to the terrific beauty of excruciating pain.


Mográs enveloped him.


He charged out from behind the pillar and fell upon his enemy with a power birthed in the darkness of the Shadow. A Diamond Guard yelled with surprise and swung a spaded pike at Saendul’s head. He ducked below the swing and slashed at the guard’s legs, his limbs moving as one, dancing with the beat of his obsidian heart, a single fluid, pulsing motion. The guard fell screaming, writhing in pain. Another guard dropped his long pike and drew his two-sided, shining sword. With a yell, the guard swung it at the man wreathed in shadow. Saendul intercepted the strike with his sword, and for a moment darkness met the light, and the voices screamed.


The guard’s blade shattered, and he fell back with a cry, dead, taken by the Shepherd of Night. Saendul spun suddenly, and impaled upon his curved blade a fresh attacker. The assailant’s mouth opened with shock, his sword held above his head. Another guard swung his sword at Saendul before he could pull his weapon from the body of his late victim. He released the handle quickly, and, ducking the assailant’s attack, drew his short, black knife from his boot, rising again to his feet. As the guard began to swing his sword again, Saendul dodged to the side and slammed his knife into the guard’s neck, and followed him to the ground, a spray of crimson arcing through the air, splattering across his face.


Silence reigned as a pool of dark blood spread across the white marble floors.


Saendul staggered to his feet, chest heaving, face and hood and robes and hands soaked with blood, the terrific power of madness unleashed ripping through him, tearing him apart with terrible, wonderful, intoxicating strength, horrendous power.


Drops of scarlet dripped from Saendul’s fingertips, falling elegantly to join the mass of blood spreading across the marble floor.


Saendul took a deep breath, his gaze falling upon the twisted bodies of his fallen enemies, not a trace of pity or regret in his heart.


He had answered the call.


Saendul collected his boot knife and wicked scimitar, leaving the throwing knives where they lay. Sheathing both weapons, he entered the bedchamber.
**********


King Aloraés of Osoran lay on his soft bed, attempting to lie still and feign sleep despite his pounding heart. The enemy was in his home. The enemy was here. He trusted his advisors and his Guard, but he was worried nonetheless.


He was no fool. He knew the identity of the men who slept in his guest rooms, the legendary living shadows who had stalked his kingdom for generations. Tales were told on moonless nights of the men who were birthed from darkness, driven by madness, lusting for violence. The stuff of nightmares they were, haunting the dreams of children, imagined phantoms with monstrous fangs, glistening in the moonlight, grinning with dark amusement. The nightmares had come alive, emerging from the dank shadows to kill the King’s beloved son.


He knew all too well the Blades of Epithet.


Grief threatened to take hold as he again thought of the murder of his firstborn son. He writhed on his bed, doing battle with the sheets, fighting the grief. It flooded over him, washing him away in a torrent of agony. He fought it with everything he had, but it was strong, the madness that lurked in the back of his mind, struggling to overwhelm him. And he was losing. The horrendous grief, ripping at his very soul, dragged him down into a pit of relentless pain and cackling madness.


Aloraés’ eyes snapped open as he heard the clash of steel and the cries of dying men from outside his bedroom. The Blades of Epithet had finally arrived on his doorstep.


Rage grasped at him with rugged claws. His demons pulled him into a pit of thought renting, seething anger. He thought of Fladeer, and violent fury clouded his mind. The demons that had haunted him for so long, held at bay by nothing more than strength of will, stalking forever the darkest of his thoughts, again sprang to the fore, attacking him with seductive hatred. Aloraés fought back an agonized scream and schooled the demons down, pushing away the rage.


Aloraés drew in a breath to sooth his vicious anger. Only then did he notice that the fighting had ceased. He looked to his door. The knob began to turn. Aloraés clamped his eyes shut and fell once again into an agitated and restless feigned sleep. The enemy was in his room. The enemy was here. It had come to it at last. Wrath surged through him, surged through his veins, straining to be freed. The heavy breathing of the man birthed from shadow was the only sound in the world.


The voices whispered, taunting and urging.


Madness smashed through its restraints, and the hinting, laughing, mocking, screaming voices of insanity wailed through his mind. He abandoned reason, surrendering to his passion, surrendering to the demons, to the madness, to the voices that came to him with the night, seeping through cracks in the walls, summoned by darkness.


Through vision tinted red with wrath, he saw the shadow, the very stuff of legend, standing in his room. Through a veil of scarlet rage, his fingers found the hilt of the sword lying next to his bed, and a ring of steel announced its arrival to the night air. Fury dimmed his mind, his entire being focused on the destruction of the man of shadow, his muscles coiled with restrained power. With a violent scream of shattering fury, he welcomed the demons into his mind and attacked. Rage seethed forth, smashing through barriers, through restraints, summoned by madness, called forth by screaming voices, enveloping his mind, ravaging his soul. He fought the shadow with his blade as though it were an extension of his arm, dueling the black menace with the strength and agility of a beast unshackled. The angry fires of hate surged through him, consumed him, engulfing him in dark, screaming madness.


The demon stared into Aloraés’ soul, madness dancing in his red, bloodshot eyes, his skin blackened and cracked, face contorted by a violent snarl.


The king swung his sword at Saendul, his wrath guiding his blade. Saendul stepped to the left and blocked the blow. Aloraés spun, and made a great overhead swing, intent on splitting Saendul's skull. Saendul brought his blade up and blocked the near-fatal attack, locking blades. Saendul seized his chance.


“Is Father to go the same way as his son?” he sneered. Enraged, Aloraés broke from the standoff and slashed with his blade. Saendul laughed mockingly and sidestepped the swing. He slapped the flat of his sword against Aloraés’ hand, sending his sword flying across the room to clatter against the far wall. Saendul seized the king’s throat and slammed him against a marble wall.


“Fladeer begged for death, in the end,” he growled. Aloraés’ eyes widened, and his attempts to free himself from Saendul’s iron grip ceased, and he let his body grow limp. He was defeated, the voices silenced.


He thought of Fladeer. He thought of the times he watched his son play in the dirt, making castles and tunnels in the earth. He thought of his innocence, and bountiful joy of life. He thought of his bravery, his integrity. He thought of Fladeer’s hatred of torture, and of his blinding fear of it. His beautiful baby boy’s nightmares had come to life, incarnated in a man wreathed in shadow, to take him into the night.


“No,” Aloraés whispered. Saendul drove his sword through the king’s abdomen.


“Mográs awaits,” he hissed. Thunder echoed in the heavens with a resounding boom. The drums of the sky sounded in the night, and violent winds screamed past the windows, rattling the panes.


The Shepherd of Souls had come to take his prize.


The light in the world seemed to fade. Aloraés’ rage was vanished. The King of Osoran crumpled to the ground, a heap at Saendul’s feet.


Mográs took the soul of the King of Men, and departed from the world, leaving behind only a demon, haunted by inhuman madness, reaching forever from the recesses of his twisted mind.